Hiroshima school girls who drove the city’s trams during the war and their memories of the atomic bombing

Morino Nakamura will not be a name familiar to most people in Japan and even less so to those outside of the country, but her place in history is guaranteed as the first of more than 300 school girls to drive or conduct the trams in Hiroshima during the war and, like many of her school girl colleagues, to suffer terrible trauma when the Little Boy atom bomb was dropped on the city on August 6 1945.

Remembering their friends

Every August, the surviving tram girls get together at the Hiroshima Electric Railway Company to remember their friends who were either killed in the blast or who have since passed away.

Passengers at the back could not see the driver

Such was the urgent need to enlist the school girls that training was often very basic, with male tram drivers saying to the school girl next to him that she had to carefully watch how he operated the tram before inviting her to have a go at driving. If she was up to standard the instructor would say ”OK, you are certified.” One driver, Hatsue Ishikawa, was so small that when she was surrounded by passengers at the front, the people at the back of the tram could not see her.

Everyone turned to ash

Other, more sober, memories are recalled by Akira Ishida who remembers that at the time of the blast: “Crowds of people had been walking beside the tram lines. There was not a trace left of them. All the walkers had been carbonised.”

No idea what happened to her mother

Tram girl Haruno Horimoto said :”One day I would be working on the tram, the next I would be searching for my mother. I feared that even her bones had been burnt to ashes. I have no idea what happened to her even today.”

Romance

Despite the desperate times romance did blossom on some lines, with tram 101 being renowned for having the best looking girls operating it and subsequently the most school boys riding it.

Trams running again

Just three days after the explosion, Hiroshima’s trams started operating again and the first service was driven by a tram girl, conveying displaced people. Those without money were able to travel for free.

Hiroshima tram pictures from Rail Picture Library (railpicturelibrary.com): https://tinyurl.com/ydmswxbh , https://tinyurl.com/yc3bk4au and https://tinyurl.com/bmvmjp4v

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